The present disclosure relates generally to data communication networks. More particularly, the present disclosure relates to secure wireless network setup using multicast packets.
Wireless local-area networks (WLAN) are proliferating. Compared to wired local-area networks, WLANs of course have the advantage of being wireless, enabling setup without the time-consuming task of running cables to each station in the network. But wireless communications must be secured to prevent access by unauthorized parties. Popular technologies for securing WLANs include shared secret key cryptographic schemes such as Wired Equivalent Privacy/Wireless Encryption Protocol (WEP), Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA), and the like. According to these schemes, the stations in a WLAN share a secret key, and the wireless messages exchanged among the stations are encrypted using the shared secret key.
One complication with these schemes is the need to provide the shared secret key to each station in the WLAN. The key cannot be transmitted unencrypted over the WLAN because unauthorized parties could intercept the key, thereby gaining access to subsequent encrypted messages exchanged over the WLAN.
One conventional solution is to connect each station by a cable to a personal computer (PC), and to use the PC to provide the shared secret key to the stations over the cable. Of course, this requires physically moving each station to the PC or running a long cable between each station and the PC. In addition, the user must have the technical knowledge and patience to configure each station, for example by entering the key and Basic Service Set Identifier (BSSID) for the WLAN.